Charlie Productions : Actually Ben Mate, I Don't Think This Is Working...

NO, not a page dedicated to the fact that making films in not a proper job but a brief pause for thought for those ideas that never made it...

1. For The One (also known as Chiarscuro, Times Crucible and, that piece of shit set in a wood).
"The very thought of it brings tremours of pure horror rattling down my spine!" says Ben Blaine "This was the first and only time that Chris and I have attempted to write physically together in the same room at the same time - a HUGE mistake.

"Puffed up with ourselfs after the joyious success of "The Bible According To Charlie" we decided to make another feature film set in our local wood which would be a kind of ghost story and be really spooky and clever. Of course it was an awful idea mainly because I was in no mood to write a slasher film and kept trying to make it into some sort of serious Sci-Fi philisophical Dr.Who type thing. I was also still very bad at restraining my vast ego and so gave myself the best character with all the best lines which I think kind of pissed of Keith whose character was sort of the dull one who turns out to be a baddy but is mainly dull.

"We actually started to rehearse this! Oh God save us from ourselves! Poor Keith! Poor Gary Sumner and Leanne Smith - not to mention tiny little Ed Hamer who was cast as an eight-year old with weird dreams that were coming true... oh Christ!

"Actually I got sent a script the other day for a Zombie flick that read along similar lines. I burnt it. It was a spiritual thing for me."

2. The Pant Monster.
This was one of Chris' ideas which revolved around school friend Duncan Wood needing to eat everyone's underpants and only being able to be defeated by this guy who saw everyone as Buddah's. "I never understood or liked this idea" says Ben "It's one of Chris' mad thoughts that make me grin nervously and nod in a panicky kind of 'get me out of here' way. Now sometimes these ideas turn into little droplets of pure genius, so I always try and not run off and hide straight away. But sometimes they don't."

3. Blank Expression.
A screenplay Ben wrote at the same time as "Good Morning, Who Are You?" which was based on an episode of the cartoon "The Poddington Peas" but replacing the comedy peas with disenfranchised teenagers (a theme that was boringly recurrent in his work at this time) and trying desperately to fill it with obscure arty meaning. It involved a boy who does a lot of running who loses his reflection and ends up selling his soul to a menacing man in an ice cream van and reads very much like a BBC2 Drama from 1983.

"Richard York was going to play the man boy, although I'm not sure I ever told him this. I'm judging by the complete silence that Chris didn't like this script. I still have a bit of soft spot for it really. In my mind it's quite beautiful. No very beautiful! The title came from a Specials track I was listening to constantly at the time, so yeah it probably was very early 80's from the word go. I suppose poncy political art wank is my version of Chris' screaming lunacy - we keep each other in check."

4. It's A Short Film About... Deja Vu, Fitness, Insects, Cool, Sin and Insects II.
The Blaines came up with a load of very short silly films whilst in Edinburgh in 1998 but in the event only one of the original batch has ever been completed (Honnour with it's originally unintentional spelling mistake - Ben really should write for the Guardian).

Deja Vu was to star Nigel Havers and featured him sitting down on a bench and looking at the camera with a puzzelled expression before saying "Funny". This made Ben and Chris laugh LOTS but Havers backed out at the last moment and so it was never done.

Fitness stared Danny Schlesinger as a fat jogger who runs along and falls over, unfortunately the trip didn't actually look very convincing and watching it back it just looked like he suddenly hurls himself at the camera, which is funny in a way but so mind bendingly obscure as to not really warrant the effort.

Insects came about because whilst coming up with the ideas on a bench on a hill in Edinburgh Chris was attacked by a wasp and his wildly squealing efforts of self defense rendered his brother senseless with laughing. However the recreation of this was shot out of focus and so was never used.

Cool was simply a rather ugly girl walking along with a pair of those yellow sunglasses that were fashionable at the time and a snappily dressed guy stops her and says "You're still ugly" but in the end it was decided that this wasn't actually very funny.

The same fate befell Sin in which two women sit on a bench side by side, one eating chocolates. The other eyes the chocolates greedily and eventually steals one. At which point the first woman stares at her and laughs. "I found this really clever and funny" says Ben "But Chris didn't like it, he said it had to end with them fighting, then it would be funny, I disagreed and the simplest thing was to drop it altogether."

Insects II is similar to the first one except that this time Chris' wild arm movements knock a girl, who knocks this boy, who falls onto a Granny who pushes this guy into the road where he is hit by bus. "We actually tracked down a stuntmen to do this" remembers Ben "But he wanted something like £500 so it became a bit of an impossibility, especially after Harry Hill turned down Chris' part. Bastard. Not that I'm bitter or anything but he turned it down because he was doing a new show on BBC2 - that was three years ago! I haven't seen him since except on cable! Ha! Ha! You see Harry! Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the arse? Do you see what happens Harry? DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU -FUCK - A STRANGER - IN - THE - ARSE!?"

5. Half 3.
Or to give it the proper title...

Zee and Ben were having a drink in the Builder's Arms' one winter and Zee was asking Ben what he was writing. Ben waffled on for a bit and then asked Zee if he was writing anything. Zee wasn't but for some reason felt impelled to lie and so he said he was writing this film based around a couple of things that had happened to him at Bath University. They got all excited about it and came up with the name Half 3 (the time the key events happened) and a way that it would be written so it was like a logo and that could go on t-shirts and posters and just draw people in.

The hard part of the process complete they suggested a couple of flimsy ideas as to what might actually happen and went home happy.

Then began a long a painful process of writing...

Zee wrote a few pages and Ben sort of liked them and Chris sort of liked them. Then Chris and Zee wrote some more and Ben hated it and so Ben wrote a draft and Chris and Zee hated it and then that sat sullenly around for a bit.

"I can't remember when the penny fell dropped that it was a completely shockingly bad idea" says Ben "Much later than it should of. I know Zee made quite a few inital steps on getting funding from Bath council or something - and somewhere I've got a letter from a production company saying they thought the treatment was interesting but a bit strange and they didn't quite understand the stuff with the bicycling Russian.

"My version went something like Zee is Zee at University in Bath and he falls in love with this girl but she's always asleep and Zee can't sleep because his bed is uncomfortable. So his mate Tim (played by Zee's mate Tim) suggests he gets a job in the 24-hour store which is run by Slimey Dave (Keith) but owned by Unpleasant Andrew (who in my draft was never seen and was a sort of God/Satan figure, I think in one of Chris' versions Andrew turned out to be an Indian Chieftan). Zee then goes to a party but the girl is asleep so he drinks and meets this mad girl in a public toilet who is singing and this guy with a crash helmet on who is angry at her.

"Zee and Tim then steal the girl (Amy I think) and her bed and wheel the girl and the bed across Bath and back to Zee's house. On the way though Zee sees the girl from toilet murdered on Zee's abandonded bed down the by the river.

"Tim goes to call the Police and Zee finally falls asleep on his bed to be woken by a disbelieving Policeman.

"Back at his house Amy wakes up and, dressed in the bed sheets, she and Tim slip into dialouge from Gothe's Faust part 2 with her as Helen of Troy. Tim is dressed as a cowboy for a fancy dress party.

"Zee is angry with them and goes to work instead of going to their party and Slimey Dave takes him out for a night out at this crazy club which was a thin parody of OMSK at 333. Then Dave turns into a fly and ends up hunting Zee.

"The last part of the film is very strange with Zee, Tim and Amy running away from a Dave's gang which includes Osip a bicycling Russian psychopath from Checkov's Platinov. They're all dressed as cowboys but can only speak a single line of dialouge each which they put different stresses on to give different meaning.

Are you still reading? I wasn't. It was a complete mess and I mainly wrote my draft by stealing dialouge and scenes from other films and plays. I don't know, I was trying to rewrite Faust for students, I think Zee was trying to justify something and I guess Chris was trying to make it funny and cool rather than over intellecutalised and dull. We should of burnt it after the first ten pages."

6. The Recording Angel.
So close and yet so far!

Ben wrote this in a hurry after Chris told him that they were going down to see Zee in Bath that weekend and they needed something to shoot whilst they were down there. The basic idea was that Ben would be this really cool character who never wore shoes and recorded sound and Zee would be a bit of an arse (something in Ben's style never changes does it...).

In the end Ben didn't go and it wasn't filmed. However the script was refined and everyone, apart from Chris, was always really keen on it.

"I guess Chris always saw it as more arthouse wank, and in a way he's probably right" says Ben. "We were going to shoot it with Ed Hamer in the recording role and Zee in the slobby part and we tried doing it this one morning after a party but we were all stunningly hung over and Chris and I were at each others throats, in a discreet kind of way. I think we were both trying to prove something and in a way we did because the results were not only unwatchable but uneditable and we never shot anymore."

The idea hung around though and when Carl Pizzie came back into the scene there was serious talk of him playing the recordist and his mate Mark (Tony in BBC TV's Eastenders) taking on Zee's part.

"Carl was keen, then Mark was keen, then Mark wasn't so keen, then someone else was going to do it... in the end it was clear that Chris wasn't that interested and at the time I was feeling really overstretched and it just seemed like a project too far so it slipped off the radar once again."

7. Dunbar.
Three cars, one static camera, lots of movement. Sort of like ballet or something. For a while Chris was really keen on this and it was about a week away froom shooting at one point. Then he decided he didn't like it after all and since Ben's heart had never been in it there was no one to plead for it's life.

8. Topiary War.
This was originally Sophie's idea for two or three very short films. The first one would be this long shot from the window of a stately home at this garden with a manicured lawn and beautifully scultpured trees. Then the tip of one tree bends and it sneezes.

In the second film we have a similar shot except with a gardener watering flower beds when suddenly one of the taller topiary hedges bends down and eats him.

In the final film all hell breaks loose and all the bushes and trees race around and fight like cats and dogs.

"Chris wanted to end up with all the plants doing this big musical number that we'd copy from Buzby Berkly routine." Thinks Ben "I'd still like the make these. They'd be fun. Of course you'd have to pay us a shit load..."

9. Dog Heaven.
Like Topiary War this was around the time of the It's A Short Film About's... Ben remembers it like this "We were walking round the lake near where we shot "Honnour" and I just thought how much fun it'd be to do this short film that was just like a load of dogs just running about and having a really great time. We both love dogs and it'd just be such a great way to spend a sunny day, in a field running about with loads of dogs all barking and having fun. I then couldn't resist having this big sign come up on the screen at the end saying "THIS DOES NOT EXISIT".

"That scuppered it really, we both found that really funny and at the same time it was too painful a truth. I mean, I know Dog Heaven doesn't exisit but I don't want some smart arse film kids coming along and telling me in loud voices. I'd like to make it but, you know, like all true art, it's just too painful."

10. Pool.
Ben and Chris are both very keen pool players. Ben came up with this joke that goes "God and the Devil are playing pool and the Devil's got God into this trickey situation. So God comes up to table, looks at the situation, reaches under the table for the support , stretches the full length and plays this stunnig shot, off four cusions, pots and sets him up for the perfect snooker. So he plays the snooker and sits down again. So up comes the Devil and he surveys the table, reaches under the table for the support but can't find it, confused he looks up and God shrugs "Well there's no rest for the wicked."

Yes it is a bad joke but it's quite a good bad joke. Both were keen to turn this into a film and it was nearly shot in the Windmill pub in Hadley were they had this perfect pool table just by a window which on a sunny day had all of these shafts of light and was just beautiful.

Chris then worked the joke up into this long script but Ben didn't like it - it was too much for such a weak joke.

For ages it was going to be filmed and they even found actor Chris Abbot to play both parts of the God and Devil. It was going to be shot in St.Albans pool club one Sunday morning, everything was arranged when key player Tracey Gifford (who would transform Abbot into the God and the Devil) became unavailable.

Interest in the idea wained a bit after that, although Oli is still keen to photograph it. Really the problem lies in the fact that Chris wants to have fun and do loads of effects and loads of cool pool stuff and isn't very interested in the film unless these are involved. But Ben feels that whilst really good all of these things overload the simple joke. Chris tried a version without the joke but Ben never liked it.

Charlie Productions believe passionately in doing things and always trying to stop in time for tea.
Brook House Design Studios, Bluebridge Road, Brookmans Park, Herts AL9 7SX
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